Science and Belief

In Biology of Belief, Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D., a stem cell biologist who taught at Wisconsin’s School of Medicine, shares his journey of awareness; scientific and personal. He wants to empower non-scientific folk and make complicated stuff accessible. He teaches how “each cell is an intelligent being that can survive on its own” – and “actively seeks environments that support their survival… simultaneously avoiding toxic or hostile ones.”

“The fate and behavior of an organism is directly linked to its perception of the environment . . . the character of our life is based upon how we perceive it.” . . . “Many of us are leading limited lives not because we have to but because we think we have to.”

We are miracles. All our trillions of intelligent cells come together to create our experience on earth. Day-in, day-out, who thinks about how our cells work? How cell membranes regulate proteins; polar or non-polar; which cells get nutrients – or not? Who knew we had phospholipids that keep nutrients from getting where they need to go when the right receptors are missing? I guess a Biologist would – but me? Not so much.

According to Dr. Lipton, most Biologists “rely on the outmoded . . Newtonian version of how the world works.” They didn’t join the Physicists who threw out the Newtonian universe and “realize that the concept of matter is an illusion.” Lipton sees that:

“..matter is made of energy and there are no absolutes. At the atomic level, matter does not even exist with certainty; it only exists as a tendency to exist.”

When we talk disease, it shows up at the macro level; but it started at the molecular level. Taking a prescription “to silence a body’s symptoms, enables us to ignore personal involvement with the onset of those symptoms . . . drugs suppress the symptoms but most never address the cause of the problem.”

“Energy medicine” is not new. Chiropractic, acupuncture, homeopathic and other non-drug practitioners’ fight to be recognized as legitimate. Lipton believes that “the medical establishment will eventually be dragged, half kicking and screaming, full force into the quantum revolution.”

Quantum science includes biology – “matter and energy are entangled.”

“Thoughts, the minds energy, directly influence how the physical brain controls the body’s physiology.” – “The fact is that harnessing the power of your mind can be more effective than the drugs you have been programmed to believe you need.” – who hasn’t heard of the placebo effect?

Our “greatest problem” according to Dr. Lipton is that “wethink we are running our lives with the wishes, desires, and aspirations created by our conscious mind.”

We aren’t. According to a 2005 neuroscience study, our conscious mind is active about 5% of the time. The other 95% we’re operating on autopilot – aka our subconscious. How else do we drive a car, have a conversation, eat an apple – and wind up where we’re going?

As children we pick up “the fundamental behaviors, beliefs and attitudes we observe in our parents.” They “become ‘hard-wired’ as synaptic pathways in our subconscious minds. Once programmed into the subconscious mind they control our biology for the rest of our lives … or at least until we make the effort to reprogram them.”

The good news is that we have a choice.

“We can actively choose how to respond to most environmental signals” . . . “The conscious mind’s capacity to override the subconscious mind’s pre-programmed behaviors is the foundation of free will.”

What we choose to believe is up to us. How we change our beliefs depends – hysterically enough on our beliefs; no one way works for everyone!